Town Square

Palo Alto locals march to support gun control

Members of the Silicon Valley Community Against Gun Violence and Organizing For Action marched downtown during the National Day to Demand Action to Prevent Gun Violence and to show their support for tougher gun laws and legislation. Video by Veronica Weber/Palo Alto Online

Bonnie Bernstein, MEd, MFT, BC-DMT, has been a resident of Palo Alto since 1986. She is a marriage and family therapist and dance/movement therapist who has worked with issues of trauma for 35 years. Her social activist philosophy dates back to demonstrations and rallies for social justice in the late 1960's.
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More street theater--and nothing more!

This business about background checks is smoke and mirrors. The Wall Street Journal, as well as many other mainstream media outlets covered this story last Demember:

Despite recent progress in some states, millions of mental-health records remain missing from the national database that gun dealers use to run background checks on potential buyers, according to a new analysis of federal data by a coalition of U.S. mayors.
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These records are missing because State/Local officials have not been doing their jobs, and complying with Federal law! So--why are these "activists" calling for State/Local officials to provide the Federal government the data that is needed to insure that all of those deemed unworthy of owning firearms will be stopped when they try to purchase weapons?

And while the "activists" are at it--why not protest "crime"--since this where guns are creating violence. Not that many gun owners decide to take out the AK-47 and shoot up the town on a slow Saturday night.

Posted by paco
a resident of Palo Alto Hills
on Mar 29, 2013 at 8:10 pm

Six people marching with signs hardly qualify's as an "organized group". Perhaps the Weekly is trying to redefine an "organized group" to further their own political agenda. Just stick to selling real estate ads and leave the political misinformation to the Daily.

Posted by HUTCH 7.62
a resident of Old Palo Alto
on Mar 29, 2013 at 9:15 pm

When is the media and the presidency gonna listen to the majority who don't want gun control. Or ask yourself this, why is DHS under the Obama Admin, buying armored vehicles, M-16's and Hollow point 5.56 Nato ammo? BTW Hollow point ammo IS outlawed by the Geneva convention

Posted by HUTCH 7.62
a resident of Old Palo Alto
on Mar 30, 2013 at 9:04 am

"The Hague Convention of 1899, Declaration III, prohibited the use in international warfare of bullets that easily expand or flatten in the body.[3] This is often incorrectly believed to be prohibited in the Geneva Conventions, but it significantly predates those conventions, and is in fact a continuance of the St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868, which banned exploding projectiles of less than 400 grams, as well as weapons designed to aggravate injured soldiers or make their death inevitable. NATO members do not use small arms ammunition that is prohibited by the Hague Convention.

Despite the ban on military use, hollow-point bullets are one of the most common types of civilian and police [4] due largely to the reduced risk of bystanders being hit by over-penetrating or ricocheted bullets, and the increased speed of incapacitation.

In many jurisdictions, even ones such as the United Kingdom, where expanding ammunition is generally prohibited, it is illegal to hunt certain types of game with ammunition that does not expand.[5][6] Some target ranges forbid full metal jacket ammunition, due to its greater tendency to damage metal targets and backstops.[7]"

Polls show 90% approval on universal background checks. You can't Americans to agree on the sun rising in the east with 90%, yet 9 in 10 want better controls on gun purchases.

CBS: "Ninety-two percent of Americans favor background checks for all potential gun buyers, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.

Universal background checks are one of the proposals that President Obama has called on Congress to pass as part of his proposal to combat gun violence in the wake of the massacre in a Newtown, Conn., elementary school in December.

"If you want to buy a gun -- whether it's from a licensed dealer or a private seller -- you should at least have to show you are not a felon or somebody legally prohibited from buying one," Mr. Obama said Wednesday, adding that "as many as 40 percent of all gun purchases are conducted without a background check." "